Now back to Italy. After 3 flights (Edinburg>Paris>Rome>Brindisi) last Sunday, I arrived here in Lecce. I am participating in an intensive program in Climate and Sustainability in Urban Environments, which is completely funded by the EU. Honestly, the journey was exhausting but Lecce is a beautiful city and they have been feeding us like royalty with incredible food and wine so I can’t complain.

Edinburg>Paris

Can you spot the windmills?

Paris>Rome

The sun was so bright and began to cast this yellowish tint on the water – never seen anything like it from the air

This is a Roman amphitheater where animals used to fight (no gladiators in Lecce) and it held over 10,000 people. It was buried until it was discovered in the 1930s but half of it remains buried because they wouldn’t demolish the church that was built on top of it.

Paper mâché is one of the local crafts of Lecce

Santa Croce (I think)

Napoleon pizza – love this oven setup

Cappuccino con biscotti

Site visit

Privately owned stone quarry (no longer in use, obviously)

Amazing Greek dinner

Believe it or not, we actually do some things not related to food

…then we get back to the food.

The restaurant at our hotel is delicious.

Orchiette con pomodori

Pollo

Gelato

Yesterday we had an incredible day trip. We first went to Gallipoli on the west coast of Salento (the region of Italy we are in), on the Ionian Sea and also to Otrantro on the east coast on the Adriatic.

Eating sea urchins at the fish market in Gallipoli

The local stone of Gallipoli is very unique and is made partially of crushed shells

Ionian Sea – it really is that blue, no photoshop needed!

Driving to Otranto

Thermal baths on the Adriatic (closed for the season)

Then we had a four-course lunch on a farm where all the cheese/vegetables/meat is grown/made. Amazing.

Appetizers

Chickpeas & chicory

Maccheroni

Pork & potatoes

Cake with fruit

After the epic meal, we got off the bus on the side of the highway to check out another abandoned quarry – the color of the water in these photos barely does it justice

Finally arrived in Otranto

We had dinner last night at our hotel, and even ended up at a carnivale party (conveniently also in our hotel)

Today was a much needed lazy day around Lecce

Arancino (rice ball) and espresso with almond milk

View from the hotel, (light) dinner at the hotel

As with other trips, I’ve gotten a lot of heat and jokes this week for my excessive photo-taking but I just can’t help it that everything is so beautiful and photogenic! It took me about four days to put this update together…time to mentally prepare myself (and my stomach) for week number two..

This weekend, I went to Dublin with my friend from school because we had a VIP hookup for the hottest ticket in town, vh1 storytellers with Ed Sheeran at Whelan’s.

Even the immigration agent who stamped my passport knew about the concert:

“How long are you staying in Ireland, Anastasia?”

“Until Monday morning.”

“And why are you here?”

“I’m going to a concert.”

“Oh, so you’re going to go see Ed Sheeran, huh?”

“Actually, yes I am.”

“Ok then, have fun.”

Stamp.

One of the best things about being abroad is that it is super cheap to travel to many other places, including Ireland. Our flight was £19 round trip – about $30.

The concert was awesome and we had the next day to explore the city, although it seemed like many things were closed since it was Sunday. All in all, we had a good time and some delicious food so it was a success.

Door to our room at the hostel…not going to lie, this concerned me a bit

Okay okay okay…I’ve been back in Glasgow for almost three weeks now and am starting to get a bit of heat for my lack of updates – but I have been busy!

I was in the states for two super-packed weeks filled with lots of visits, wonderful people and delicious food. I got back to Glasgow on New Years Eve which was a bit of a blur…I hadn’t slept much on my flights back, and only took an hour nap before going out with friends for a delicious thai dinner and to a pub with a live band for midnight…came back to the flat around 12:30am, and slept until 3pm the next day! Very disorienting.

On the 2nd, we went to Edinburgh to catch the last bits of the Christmas market, and I spent the next few days after that in complete hibernation, working on my school papers which were due the 5th. On the 6th, my brother John came to visit (as my first official visitor!) so I played tour guide for a few days, but also developed a horrific cough which is finally beginning to fade.

On Friday, we had our first major snowfall in Glasgow (about two inches), which has made roads and sidewalks very slick and slushy, as people don’t seem to shovel much..

This week = getting back into school work and a few days in Dublin next weekend!

And now, some (a lot of) photos.

last few days in Glasgow before Christmas – packing for home with all the essentials:

Of course I am a few days late with this post but to be fair I am still stuffing myself with plenty of leftovers and therefore, still in Thanksgiving-mode.

While it was hard to not be at home on Thanksgiving for my first time ever, we hosted a delicious feast for 25ish of our friends last Saturday which, I have to say, was a complete success. I spent the last few weeks gathering and sourcing all of the ingredients that I would need so we had all of the traditional favorites (although, since only 2 of our guests were American, no one would have known the difference)

The biggest challenge was dealing with our convection oven – apparently these are supposed to cook faster and more evenly but it takes literally 2-3x as long to cook anything (plus it’s in Celsius…) I had one in my school apartment in New York and could never get it to cook properly either, so I’m really not sure what the big deal is and I am not a fan.

But anyway – some friends came over the day before to help with the pies and miscellaneous chopping, which was a big help! I also finally bought a microwave last week so that was great for some last minute reheating. None of my international friends had ever eaten a proper thanksgiving so they were all impressed and I was so happy to share our most delicious holiday with them!

My thanksgiving options at Tesco…no thanks

(After my grocery delivery arrived with the turkey!)

Party prep

Took me a LONG time to make sure the turkey was done! Dumb oven.

Plus so many pies.

Happy friends

Happy hostess

Some more beautiful things…

GSA shop at Christmas

Reid lobby at Christmas

George Square at Christmas

Happy plants

Ceilidh fundraiser at school last night

Tea and frangipane for studio

Next week is the last full week of the term so this week = paper writing + presentation prep + hopefully some Christmassy things

It’s been a while and a lot has happened! This week was very busy with school work but for reading week last week, I opted to stay in town since I had a few school appointments scheduled. Here are some of my nice outings:

Tennent’s Brewery

Mackintosh “House for an Art Lover” (not an actual house – built in 1990s, based on a competition design proposal drawings by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife, Margaret MacDonald)

Glasgow Science Center followed by an amazing walk along the Clyde River

James Bay concert at Art School

Miscellaneous walks around the west end including the discovery of a lovely community garden

Kelvingrove Art Gallery

Argyle Street Christmas Market*

*Glasgow has already been in full Christmas-mode for several weeks, which means LOTS of delicious treats to enjoy (including delicious souvlaki at the market!)

Holiday sweets here are THE BEST:

– sticky toffee everything (including lattes)
– mince pies (usually, “mince” refers to ground beef except during the holidays, when it is a sweet pie/tart filling made of fruits like apricots and raisins which are cooked with sugar and brandy, etc. Divine.)
– stollen (technically German but I’m not picky since it’s amazing and plentiful)

Mom requested to see more photos of me, so here you go:

The Pot Still, home of 500 whiskies (I drank about half a dram and had enough)

George Square at night

(Took us a minute to realize this was a fake owl, but the other birds are real)